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It's good that you have your referral, and I completely understand about looking forward to it, it does help having a neurologist to speak to. We had battled our old vet for months on Misty, after changing vets it only took a 20 minute consult to get our referral, and I felt nothing but relief at the time.

Try not to dwell on the signs you think you may have missed, I was very angry with myself for not changing vets sooner, but someone on here pointed out it does no good to kick yourself over it. Hindsight is indeed a great thing

I never had any videos to show Allison when I went to Glasgow on Monday, I just wrote down a list of Misty's symptoms beforehand. Again, that advice was from someone on here, I forget who, my memory has been terrible lately. It was just in case I forgot anything on the day, as it can be very overwhelming, I felt sick to my stomach waiting in reception.

yes, those are his enlarged ventricles & as you can see his syrinx is huge! in cross section in places you can hardly see any healthy cord. yet today he is bouncing round our warehouse at work trying to trip me up with a burst football, apart from the occasional wobble you wouldnt think he had anything wrong with him! he is a Fantastic dog & i am so proud of his ability to cope!

Blue has been to see Mr Skerritt at Chestergates....he was really kind to us and very helpful. We have decided to stick to the meds for the time being, we can half his frusemide dose, stick with the omeprazole and gabapentin, and look at dropping his steroid dose. We chatted about a ventricular shunt but I am really loathe to rock the boat, in that a few weeks ago I thought I would never see my dog run on a beach again, or climb the stairs again, but Blue is so joyous in himself at the moment and loving his walks etc, his foot drag has disappeared and apart from the occasional wobble and his eyes getting red on occasion, you wouldn't know he had anything wrong with him. So you can see why I am reluctant to Put him through a big operation. Maybe if he started to become tolerant to the omeprazole or showed signs of deterioration I might consider it, but at the moment it's just so nice to have my chirpy chappy back! We go back in three months but will do a monthly progress report. I'm very pleased we saw Mr Skerritt, he has answered lots of questions and given us a sense of direction.

I'm glad you had such a good experience but more glad that Blue is doing so well. Omeprazole seems like the miracle drug for him. Isn't it great to have your dog back? That's how I felt when Riley started on prednisone. Hopefully Blue will stay this way for a long, long time - especially since he's still so young. Keep coming on this board and let us know how he is. He's an honorary cavalier.

lol.........its easy to look out for every little stumble etc and get paranoid.....dogs have the blissful ignorance of what is in store for them & live for the moment....i'm trying to take a leaf out of his book!
This was him on penrhyn beach after the appointment....not bad for a dog with 80% of his spinal cord in his neck obliterated by this pesky syrinx!

What a gorgeous dog! Glad you had a good meeting at Chestergates! All of my dogs have been MRI'd there.

Thanks for posting a copy of the MRI–very interesting to see. You can definitely see how enlarged the ventricles are. It is interesting to see that this does not seem at all to be SM based on the Chiari malformation though, as that isn't present as far as I can see. When you talked to Clare Rusbridge or Geoff Skerritt did they give you any indication of why they thought Blue had developed syringomyelia?

With cavaliers, it is closely linked to the malformation and the skull being too small for the size of the brain–which seems in turn to be due to the fact that as others have noted, the skull & the brain do not communicate well with each other as they develop (some of the results that have come back from the cavalier fetal tissue research and which would correspond with some of the ideas put forward by researchers –for some reason, there is a mismatch by the time the puppies begin to grow). The skull malformation seems to be linked to the shorter muzzle of cavaliers and other short faced breeds–research has shown that a lot of structures get completely turned around when dogs are bred for a shorter nose (and a lot of people are beginning to feel this is one of the things that is probably going to have to go in the breed and other breeds with the same problem, to bring back any level of breed health).

Collies, of course, would not have this problem–and also would not be known for having syringomyelia. Thus I am wondering if either of these neurologists suggested a cause for Blue's SM? I know it can be caused by a severe impact, for example, or as a form of congenital spinal bifida in some breeds, but I would also guess if there is some other type of internal malformation or obstruction, it could also develop.

We are all so used to thinking of cavaliers alone, which have one particular reason for having SM, that it is easy to forget that there are many other possible causes of the condition. I wouldn't think that Blue would have SM for the same reason that cavaliers have SM, although the end result, and all the frustrating difficulties and challenges, are the same. And, the treatments would be the same I should think, which is where a lot of us have a lot of experience that I hope will continue to be helpful to you and to Blue.